


Promises to Trust

by Tarlan



Series: Darkness as a Part of Us [2]
Category: Darklight (2004)
Genre: Community: smallfandomfest, Horror, M/M, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-21
Updated: 2010-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-15 07:32:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/158515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tarlan/pseuds/Tarlan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anders has been brought back for a reason; to hunt demons with Lilith. But he discovers that there is far more to the binding spell than control.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Promises to Trust

**Author's Note:**

> For SMallFandomFest FEST08

Had it only been three days?

Anders wrapped his arms around himself as he pondered over the paradox of only three days passing on Earth while he spent months in Hell. He recalled the screams from the thousands upon thousands of lost souls and demons, suffering both physical and mental torment every moment. How they pleaded for compassion and gained none. He recalled his own screams as talons scored his flesh, tearing out his heart, his innards and devouring them before him while he hung writhing in agony above a ground strewn with blood, bones and body parts. He would start each day with his body renewed only for the torment to begin again. As the days turned to months, he had lost count of the inventiveness of those holding him captive in Hell, suffering more than most people could imagine, only to be reborn to suffer again, over and over.

On that last day he had felt a different pull on his limbs, feeling the shackles binding him to Hell loosen and, at first, he thought it a new means of torture when he found himself in a darkened room lit only by black candles. She was there--Lilith--his mother to all intents and purposes for he had been reborn from her Darklight, and so was the human, Shaw.

Shaw claimed they needed him and yet it was Lilith who had sent him to Hell in the first place. It had to be some new form of torture, and he cried out as he felt invisible claws rake a path through his soul. Lilith was there in an instant, turned to demonic form and snarling at those trying to drag him back to Hell.

Choices.

He thought he had already made all his choices--badly--in trusting Chapel, in trusting the associates of his father who had stolen his work and left him to pay for all their crimes alone. He had already paid for his arrogance, and for his jealousy and anger, a thousand times over in Hell, and knew that was only the beginning. Eternity. Forever in torment.

"Be bound to me on Earth...or go back to Hell."

He made his choice. "Please don't send me back!"

Anders cried out again as claws gouged through his flesh, tearing strips from his body and soul, but Lilith was there once more, protecting him and forcing back his tormentors. He screamed when Shaw wrote powerful symbols in blood upon his forehead; the air filling with the stench of burning flesh--his flesh. The screams of his tormentors increased, snarling and frenzied, but they stopped abruptly as Shaw finished the mark upon his own flesh. Anders looked up from where he had collapsed on the stone floor, suddenly aware that he had swapped one prison for another. Yet, as he caught the compassion for him in Shaw's eyes, he knew he had finally made the right choice.

****

Anders rubbed at his wrist, feeling the raised welts scored upon his flesh. Lilith had explained to him what they signified when he was first released from Hell, showing him her own marks of Daggoth. She had fewer than him and that knowledge gave him the faith he needed to know it was possible to find redemption.

At the head of the ancient-looking, stone conference table, the Prefect of the order called The Faith, watched him carefully as he listened to his people explaining the latest series of supernatural events taking place around the world. Anders had still not wrapped his mind around the fact that his rebirth as a demonicos had been the first sign of the Apocalypse, and that his rebirth to the light would signify humanities only hope of sealing Hell for another two thousand years. His torture below took on greater significance too as he realized that every scream torn from him released another demon into this world, and he had screamed so many times as they flayed him alive during his time in Hell. All of those freed demons had to be sent back to where they belonged and the prophesy had named him and Lilith as the only ones capable of doing so.

The first and the last demon.

It was hard to believe that the young woman standing next to him had been created at the dawn of humanity and that she had become the first demon when she spurned Adam in the Garden of Eden. As a scientist he had treated all the biblical stories with a healthy dose of skepticism--and now he was a part of those old prophesies, the ones that had never made it into the modern version of the Bible. He had unleashed the Red Plague upon the world and now he had to atone for his sins or suffer an eternity of torment.

Anders felt sick at the prospect of returning to Hell having already suffered there. His new prison, bound to William Shaw, seemed like heaven on Earth in comparison but Anders had a feeling that Hell wasn't finished with tormenting him yet.

Cerberus was the three-headed demon dog that guarded the gates of Hell, and everywhere he went on Earth, he poisoned the ground beneath him. So far he had stayed close to the old ruins of an Athenian temple that had probably worshiped his master, Hades. The thought of tackling a demon hellhound filled Anders with dread but he had little choice if he wanted to find forgiveness. Stories from old mythologies were aired as they sought a way to send Cerberus back. In the Aeneid, Syble had drugged him with honey cakes, and Orpheus had lulled him to sleep with his music but no one knew what drug was used or what songs were sung. It seemed that their best chance lay in the method Heracles used to subdue Cerberus: by wrestling him to the ground and putting a leash on the hellhound.

It was extremely risky though.

Anders felt a hand on his arm as Shaw left the chamber and found himself drawn along the corridor with Shaw while Lilith followed behind. The man's touch was warm and strangely intimate, something that had been missing from his time spent with Chapel. He should have seen it then, how Chapel was grooming him for his own ends, but Anders had been starved for the affection, acknowledgment and respect that he had so desperately craved for so long that he had fallen easily for Chapel's sincerity and charm. He'd been a fool and he had paid dearly for it. He couldn't afford to make the same mistake twice and yet he found himself falling for Shaw's simple and honest ways.

Learning to control his demonic form was easy when he had such a good teacher as Lilith but learning how to be a decent human being came harder. It had taken them several years to re-introduce Lilith to her humanity, and they had accomplished that by filling her with talos wood to subdue her demon form and then removing her memories. They didn't have the time to spare for his re-training--not that he wanted to lose all of his memories, except for those gained over the past two years in his fall from grace. Demons were walking the Earth causing death and destruction, and it was partially his fault. Many of them were lesser demons who could be handled by members of The Faith in the various countries around the world but they planned on leaving the worst ones for Lilith and him.

The touch lingered long after Shaw should have let go and Anders wondered if that was by conscious design or not. He liked Shaw's touch, finding it a source of comfort and assurance...and something more besides that he refused to name.

"Plane leaves in thirty minutes," Shaw stated, knowing he was giving them very little time to pack some belongings in case they were caught in Greece for more than a few days.

The plane was a private jet owned by The Faith, carrying only a small group of people. Anders knew what his and Lilith's role would be in the coming battle but he wondered what part would be played by the others. As if hearing his unspoken question, Shaw leaned in.

"They are scholars with in-depth knowledge of Greek and Roman mythology. Capturing Cerberus will be hard enough, but we still have to figure out a way to send it back to Hell."

By the time they reached the small airstrip close to the village lying in the valley below the ancient temple, they were well-rested and ready. From the air Anders had seen the huge tracts of barren land that should have been filled with olive groves, and he knew the poison from Cerberus's venomous saliva had killed anything it touched. It would be many years before the land recovered. As the door opened, he and Lilith stepped out, transforming instantly and taking to the air in their search for the demon hound.

Cerberus was strangely easy to find. All they had to do was follow the track of poisoned land to its source. They landed beside the ruins of the temple, remaining partially obscured behind fallen columns as they looked for, and found, the demon. Lilith put her taloned finger to her lips, asking for silence as she approached the sleeping hellhound. One of its three heads must have caught their scent for it rose up, sniffing the air before growling softly in a rumble that vibrated through the ground to where Anders crouched with leathery wings folded back. Anders stretched up to his full demonicos height as serpents began to writhe as part of the hellhounds neck fur. According to legend, this creature was brother to the Sphinx and the Chimera, and the offspring of the Titan Typhon and Echidna--the half-nymph, half-serpent mother of all monsters.

By now it has risen to its feet, with two of its three heads snapping in a different direction as Lilith approached from one side and Anders from another, while the third snapped around and began to snarl at the helicopter landing close by. Anders felt a moment of concern when Shaw stepped out, armed only with his faith and a shotgun and followed closely by the equally defenseless scholars. Cerberus was easily five feet tall at the shoulder, and its serpent heads hissed while venom fell from the hellhound's three ravenous mouths. Shaw was no demon like him or Lilith, and no demi-god like Heracles. If he came too close then this creature would tear him apart.

It came to Anders in a flash of half-forgotten memory, recalling how he had died and passed through the gates of Hell. This beast had stood guard there, keeping both the souls of the dead and demons alike from crossing back over to this world, and Anders could sense its desire to return. It wanted no part of this world, having chased after the escaping demons and lost its way home.

Wait! Anders commanded through his bond to Lilith. Trust me! She stopped, gesturing Shaw to stop too, and then looked across at Anders with her head tilted in confusion. Her yellowed eyes widened in alarm as Anders approached the hellhound.

You want to go home. I can see that. Let me guide you. He held out a clawed hand towards the hellhound, letting it move slowly towards him. It sniffed cautiously at his outstretched talons but made no attempt to bite him.

Lilith circled until she was next to Shaw, never taking her eyes off Anders or the beast, and Anders sensed as well as heard her words to Shaw.

"We need to open a gate to Hell."

One of the scholars came forward. "According to legend, this was the temple of Persephone, where she moved between Earth and the Underworld every six months as a penalty for eating six pomegranate seeds while among the dead. There must be a doorway here."

Anders realized it made sense, and it would explain why the hellhound had come to this place. He kept his attention focused on Cerberus while Lilith prowled through the ruins, looking for a sign that would be apparent only to a demon. It licked at his hand but Anders knew that its venom would not affect his demonicos form. He looked up when he sensed her triumph, shivering as he felt the icy blast of Hell seep deep into his bones, bringing with it an unwanted memory of pain and torment. The hellhound sensed the opening too and bounded away, disappearing in a flash and sealing the gateway behind it.

"Was that it?" Shaw asked, looking a little confused but Anders knew he had been expecting a great battle against a mythological beast rather than this quick retreat.

"I'm sure the next won't be so easy," Lilith stated softly.

With no reason left to stay in demon form, Lilith began to change back into human form, and Anders willed his body to do the same, surprised at how easy it was becoming. Like Lilith, his clothes reappeared with his human form and yet he still felt a moment of embarrassment, aware that he had stood naked before Shaw for a fraction of second during the transformation. Instead of looking away, Anders was certain Shaw had licked his lips at the sight. He felt almost compelled to move towards him, feeling incomplete until Shaw placed a hand over Anders' exposed forearm, skin-to-skin.

That same sense of warmth and reassurance flooded through him but this time Anders understood what was happening. It was part of the spell that had brought him out of Hell, binding them together. He stared into Shaw's eyes, afraid of what he would see but found only acceptance.

"I do trust you," Shaw murmured.

Anders frowned in confusion for a moment before realization sank in. "You can hear me in demonic form."

"And I can feel you too, even now. But that's okay...because I feel that way too."

Shaw lifted his hand from Anders' arm to cup his face, and his thumb brushed over Anders' lips. One of the scholars rushed forward in excitement, demanding Shaw's attention but before he turned away, Anders read a promise in Shaw's eyes that they would take this up again when they were alone.

It was a promise he trusted Shaw to keep.

END


End file.
